Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(113)

“Yours?”

“Competitors,” Jess said. “My father’s not the only smuggler in town. The Riverrun Boys specialize in things other than books. Drugs, mostly. Nasty bunch.”

“Charming,” Wolfe said. His voice was as low and raspy as Jess’s. He’d breathed in a lot of smoke. “Why would she send us here?”

“There wouldn’t have been any chance for us at the Serapeum,” Jess said. “Dario’s betrayal would have seen to that. She must have known about this place. Maybe she’s even been here.”

“Unlikely,” Wolfe said. “My mother— Did you see—”

“Yes,” Jess said. “I did. I’m sorry.”

Wolfe said nothing. His eyes looked flat, lightless, utterly unreadable. The silence stretched a moment, and then he said, “We should find a way out.”

Jess broke out a glow of his own, and Glain had one, and they separated into teams to explore the room. It was wide and bare, and the exit that the Riverrun Boys must have once used had been blocked up with stones. Solid ones. London Garda had found this place. If she brought us all this way only for us to die in a trap . . .

“Over here,” Glain called. She was leaning half her weight on Thomas, but she had a look of elation on her face. “I think these are steam tunnels.”

Jess felt a wave of disquiet. “Did you find a way out?”

“There’s a staircase leading up. It’s barred with a grate,” Thomas said. “Welded shut, with the symbol of the English lion on it. London Garda?”

“Find something to force it,” Jess said, and began looking himself. “We may not have much time.”

“Why not? What is it?” That was Dario, who’d finally gotten up from his spot against the wall. Jess picked up a piece of rotten wood and tossed it aside without answering. “Jess, wait. I can explain—”

“I’m not listening,” Jess interrupted. “Look for something to break those welds. Hurry.”

“Why?” Santi asked.

“Because if Glain’s right, these tunnels vent scalding steam off of the city boilers. We need to break out of here. Quickly.”

“How often does it vent?” Wolfe asked.

“I don’t bloody well know! Every day? Every hour? The point is, we need to move. Now!”

That ended the questioning.

It was Khalila who came up with the solution, when a search failed to turn up anything else. She made an impatient sound, grabbed Jess’s weapon, and said, “Make it safe. Quickly.”

He did, sliding the safety switches and removing the cartridge, and she jammed it into the grate. “Now, Thomas. You’ve got the best leverage, I think.”

“I’ll try.” He sounded doubtful. His best effort popped half the weld loose, but then he stepped away, panting, flexing his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m still too weak.”

Santi stepped up and took a try and almost got it. One last try with both of them shattered the last of the welding, and the grate swung open with a rusty, stubborn shriek of hinges.

“Stairs,” Glain said gloomily. “Better let me go last. I’ll just hold you up.”

Khalila shook her head. “You come with me,” she said, and put her shoulder under Glain’s. “We’re not leaving you behind, so don’t start.”

They climbed up. When Dario moved toward the stairs, Jess shoved him back. Hard. “Not yet,” he said. “Why did you do it?”

Dario coughed, spat out black ashes, and wiped his mouth. “Do what? I went to the embassy. I thought I’d get help for us from my father. Instead the embassy called the Artifex.”

“And you sold us out. Just that easy. Coward.”

“No.” Dario wiped angrily at his eyes. “I would have given my life. But he had Khalila’s family, Jess. I couldn’t let him . . . I told him where you would have gone, to London, but you didn’t show up there. He asked me where else you would go. I said you would try to find the Black Archives. Jess, I didn’t know they were in the Iron Tower.”

Jess was silent. He’d effortlessly believed that Dario had turned on them. Why was that? What had Dario done to deserve that, really? Would he have done any differently with Khalila’s family at stake?

Dario gulped in an uneven breath. “I led him to you, is that what you want to hear? It’s true! I didn’t mean to do it or want to, but I did.” He was weeping, sobs hitting him like blows. “Go ahead. Hit me. Hit me!”

Jess might have, if only to stop the other young man’s self-pity, but he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and lifted the glow to check.

The opening in the ceiling had a thin curl of white mist coming out of it, like a lazy whisper. Something hissed far in the distance.

Something rattled. The hiss grew louder.

“I’ll hit you later!” Jess said, and shoved Dario up the steps ahead of him. He felt a wave of sudden heat wash over him, damp as clammy skin. He scrambled up and nearly slipped on the foggy stairs; the steam boiling up from beneath came faster now, a hot white cloud that seared his lungs when he gasped.

Dario grabbed him and towed him up the last few steps into the open air, and as Jess fell to his knees, a geyser of solid white steam shot up into the air behind him and climbed into the sky in a towering explosion.